Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I hate MMA. It's a bunch of sweaty guys hitting and/or wrestling with each other. I have nothing against homosexuality, but it's all just a little too Freudian for my tastes. And it's incredibly ironic when homophobic people talk about how much they love MMA fighting.

That being said, there is one good thing about MMA: The occasional clip where a jackass gets completely owned. Case in point:

Weather forecasters these days are almost as interested in hysteria as political strategists, so it's tough to believe all of these "perfect storm" stories that have been thrown at us over the past 72 hours. That being said, I'm hoping it's all just hype. New York City was partially evacuated, after all (the picture above is the last train out of Grand Central). I have peoples throughout the Eastern seaboard, and I hope they make it through unscathed.

And since we're all in need of warm, distracting thoughts this week, there's no better motivation than Roxanne Dawn:

Katy Perry's doing her best get-out-the vote effort: At a rally for President Barack Obama, she wore a tight white dress imprinted like a ballot, and a square box on her right hip filled in the names of Obama and Joe Biden.

Perry gave a free concert at a park in a historically minority neighborhood just northwest of downtown Las Vegas to screaming fans at about 9 p.m., the same time Air Force One landed at McCarran International Airport across town.

I'm a little conflicted in using this as a Throwback post. On the one hand, I love this track. Memph's opening verse especially, while not lyrically-complex, never ceases to get me amped up. But on the other hand, this is the "radio edit", which has so many parts cut out that it'll make you think your speakers are on the fritz. If you're not sitting near uptight people and want to blast the true, uncensored version of this track, click here. Otherwise, just try to rock with it. That 2000 Roc-A-Fella vibe was vicious.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

This is just one of the many reasons why I love my friends. The following is a random conversation that started between four of us on Twitter earlier today (with some slight editing done for grammar and format). This is what happens when you open the floor for discussion between W&J grads. It doesn't matter if it's just the guys shooting the shit, or if our female cohorts (Alex, for instance) are involved. Shit. Gets. Real.

Joe: "My greatest fear is that, somewhere, someone is pointing at a picture of my girlfriend, as karma rears its ugly head. I fear that 30 years from now, I will be attending a reunion somewhere and will be the subject of snickers and points."

Me: "I've always said that about 'Heart Break'. I mean...some poor guy MARRIED her. lol. He has no clue."

Joe: "Same here. I see some poor guys who have married some fellow alumni and I... *bites lip to keep from laughing*"

Alex: "I feel fairly certain that will happen to me regardless."

Me: "I think you'll be okay. Def not in same class of gals as I'm talking about (and I use the term 'class' loosely)."

Alex: "Their class isn't the only thing that's loose..."

Armo: "I live in Heart Break's old house, and sometimes I feel a chill of cold air go by, and a phantom itch."

Me: "...and hear the somber groan of a deceased vagina."

Joe: "Deceased? It lived more in four years than I will in a thousand lifetimes. If we were 10 years younger, it would've trended on Twitter."

Alex: "I seriously have tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing."

Joe: "It probably deserves a Facebook memorial page, too."

Alex: "I'm thinking blog...Diaries of a Deceased Vagina."

Armo: "The Vagina Eulogies? #OffBroadway"

Joe: "Think of all the young men it touched. Made so many people happy. Like the Jerry Lewis of vaginas."

If you don't know who Priyanka is, then you probably don't watch Bollywood. And if you're a CS regular...you don't know who Priyanka is. I certainly didn't before finding this fantastic gallery put together by the folks at Bro Bible of the smoking hot Miss Chopra modeling 15 different NFL jerseys (I've included some of these pictures below). I may ask her to wear the one above for our wedding ceremony.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

As crazy as that sounds, that appears to be what a London casino is accusing him of. From YardBarker:

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Ivey recently won $11.7 million playing a game called Punto Blanco at Crockfords, an upscale casino in London. The game involves no skill and is simply won and lost by the cards the dealer hands out, and Crockfords is reportedly witholding the money Ivey won on the game after he went on a massive heater.

Ivey apparently requested that the money be deposited into his bank account, but Crockfords has only returned his original bankroll of $1.6 million. The Daily Mail reported that Phil initially lost $800,000 when he began playing the game, but then he and a female companion went on a two-night hot streak. The lady with whom he was gambling reportedly had her membership revoked by another casino previously.

Investigators have flown to London to speak with employees from Crockfords and review surveillance cameras. Ivey and his lady friend reportedly never touched the cards, and the situation is said to have turned into an “increasingly tense stand off” with lawyers from both sides working to sort through it.

There's a special bit of unintentional comedy in this casino being named "Crockfords", but I digress.

Ivey is a renowned gambler. And I don't mean that in the sheltered, playing-poker-is-gambling frame of mind; Ivey actually gambles, playing games of chance like craps (and, apparently, Punto Blanco) for high stakes as often as he plays skill games like poker. Anyone with deep financial resources and an immense amount of time spent playing games like these is due to eventually go on a multimillion dollar heater. So I'm not sure what Crockfords is looking to prove; they simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And while the history of this mysterious companion seems to lend to a theorized conspiracy, Phil Ivey ain't Phil from The Hangover. This guy gets his thrills from the game, not from the money. And if you rig the game, you erase that thrill. I find it hard to believe Phil Ivey would find any fun in playing a game that he knows he's assured of winning.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I don't think Miss Jones is as insensitive as this incident may, at first glance, make her appear to be. But I do find two things troubling about the tweet.

1. The tone of her response.

Jones' excuse for her bawdy reply—she was reacting to being "challenged" by an athlete—is telling. And it's an indictment of us, as a voyeuristic society. After all, we created her.

Lolo Jones isn't a slacker. She holds the US record in the 60M hurdles. She's qualified for the Summer Olympics twice. She has won NCAA championships. And she's won many lesser-known races that sound like background noise to those of us who only remember once every four years that track and field exists. But in the whole wide world of sports, hurdles are the equivalent of Denmark. The average person on an American street knows hurdling exists, but good luck getting them to point it out on a map.

In the U.S., popularity and glory as an athlete traditionally come from winning on your sport's biggest stage. This is especially true when you compete in a more obscure sport, like hurdling. For a track and field athlete, that stage is the Summer Olympics. At the very least, you should be dominant in the lead-up events. But Lolo Jones has never won at the Olympics; she barely qualified for the 2012 games, finishing third in the trials. She came home from London with a fourth-place pat on the back. There are hundreds of also-rans every four years; each is an impressive athlete in his or her own right. But being an impressive athlete doesn't get you booked to appear on The Tonight Show.

No, Jones' popularity—the very reason she's receiving tweets from Eric LeGrand, why her flub is getting attention, and why I'm even writing this blog—is all based on her looks. Many consider her to be a very attractive woman, and the result has been magazines, TV, and the internet placing her on a pedestal. She's been compared to Anna Kournikova, which she says is unfair. I agree, but not for the same reason that she cites*.

[*Note: I've had many a heated debate with TJ and Jay Swag over this, but I simply do not find Jones to be hot. I'm not saying that she's ugly, not by any means. But if you were to name five hundred famous women and task me with ranking them based on attractiveness—#1 being the hottest—Jones is in the 20th percentile. The irony of the Kournikova comparison is that Kournikova is legitimately hot—90th-percentile-hot.]

To help bolster this superficial fame, Jones has very smartly crafted an image that is designed to maximize her "assets". She's taken to being flamboyant on Twitter, displaying a playful ego that seems to be as much a result of her popularity as a tool for increasing it. She's appeared on Leno, and in countless magazines and news articles. And, most notably, she has "come out" as being a virgin. I don't parenthesize this because I think a virgin doesn't face embarrassment and/or negative attention by going public with such an admission; I do it because I don't believe she's a virgin. (Call me the E of the crew; I'm fine with it—he ended up with Emmanuelle Chriqui.) In fact, instead of comparing Jones to Anna Kournikova, the more fitting comparison is actually Tim Tebow:

Both were very successful as SEC athletes (Jones went to LSU) but have only found moderate success as pros (at best).

Both proclaim their virginity, despite being very successful SEC athletes (I mean, come on...I'd be much less surprised if they boned each other in college than I would if either was abstinent).

Both are media-darling athletes who, although considered by many to be attractive, I would not have sex with. (Sorry Tim.)

2. Why was she so unaware of who had tweeted her?

To a large extent, Jones was done in by the very Twitter presence she has cultivated. Quick wit wins followers, but slow-and-steady wins the race (which, for someone who competes in sprints, may not be the easiest concept to comprehend). The reality is that she was all-too-eager to not only respond to LeGrand’s question, but to do so publicly; she just as easily could have sent him a DM, or addressed her reply so that only people who follow both of them would have seen it. If Jones doesn’t have someone with social media expertise in her management team, she should hire one by the end of this sentence (I’m sure my girl at Socialminded Media Group can help her out).

Jones wants to blame LeGrand’s profile information for misleading her; that’s a bit like blaming the gun in your hand for putting a hole in your foot. If she took the time to look at his profile before responding, and if she didn’t recognize him after doing so, then why did her research stop there? The truly sound strategy would have been to see that he’s “verified”—which assures you that he’s someone of public note—and to do a quick Google search on his name. The tactic (some might call it common sense) might have cost her another 90 seconds of time, but would surely have saved her untold amounts of embarrassment.

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Jones has milked her celebrity standing out of the public’s attraction to her. It’s a fleeting “It Girl” status that belies her actual accomplishments as an athlete. And, in truth, it’s hard to fault her for doing so. She didn’t ask to be judged purely on her looks; but if we as a society are going to do it anyway, she might as well profit from it while she can. Nevertheless, if she’s going to play the role of a superstar sports personality, she needs to learn to handle herself while in the public eye. Any intern at a public relations firm can tell you that discretion is key if you’re going to successfully market your brand. That's especially true in Lolo's case, since marketing will be all she’ll have to keep her brand relevant until Rio in 2016.

For all the criticism Christina has gotten for her weight in recent years, the Secretary of State doesn't seem to see much wrong. (And now we know just why her and Big Willy's relationship has stayed so strong over the years.)

I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Clinton would agree with me on the qualifications of Miss Jessica Workman as this week's motivation:

The inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center first made a name for themselves when a video of them dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" went viral. And now they've staged an open-air performance (during a downpour, no less) of Psy's international mega-hit, "Gangnam Style."

Well...okay then. I can't help but notice, however, that the prison seems to be coed. How in the hell are they focusing on singing and dancing?

Mercedes-Benz has announced that it’s planning to launch the SLS AMG Electric Drive next year, after the car’s show debut at the Paris motor show. With 730bhp and 737lb ft, Mercedes claims the electric SLS is the most powerful production car it has ever offered.

Driven by four individual electric motors, two gearboxes and a new AMG Torque Dynamics system, the SLS Electric is four-wheel-drive, and is said to do 0-62mph in 3.9secs onto a limited 155mph.

Power comes from a liquid-cooled 60kWh, 548kg lithium-ion battery. It will take 20 hours to fully charge from a standard wall socket, or just three if you opt for the fast-charge wall box.

The site also provided a quick video look at this new environmentally-conscious beast:

The SLS has long been one of my personal favorites, so news that an electric-powered version is on the way is intriguing. But, I can't say I'm all that thrilled to hear this tidbit about the sound that it will make. The current SLS snarls like a nightmarish brute when idling, and roars like it's trying to rip open the road at every pump of the throttle. To learn that this has been sacrificed in the pursuit of technology is disheartening (though understandable, given the limited sound that electric engines produce).

I've got love for my skateboarding homies, but...that shit killed me. Thankfully the skater and the deer were both ok (the deer makes a reappearance at the end of the video, after the cameraman has rounded a bend and is downhill from the accident).

This week's motivation is brought to you by Kaylin Garcia, a.k.a. the current Mrs. Joe Budden.